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Dynasties in 2014 Senate races

A surprising number of this year’s marquee Senate races will put political dynasties to the test. Democratic Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor is leaning on a half-century of accumulated goodwill associated with his family’s name to hold his father’s old Senate seat. But he is not alone.

David Pryor, 79, won a state House seat in 1960 at age 26 and shot up the state’s political ladder from there. The former governor won his Senate seat in 1978 and rose to number three in Democratic leadership before retiring in 1996. His son, Mark Pryor, won the seat in 2002 and is seeking a third term in November against Republican Rep. Tom Cotton.

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Louisiana

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) is seeking a third term in a state that has become solidly red. She is the daughter of Moon Landrieu, who as mayor of New Orleans in the 1970s integrated city hall and then became Jimmy Carter’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. The senator’s brother, Mitch, was just reelected mayor of New Orleans last month.

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Colorado

Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) is the son the late Mo Udall, who spent three decades in Congress and sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976. The freshman senator was expected to win reelection fairly easily until Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) jumped into the race this month. Udall’s first cousin, Tom Udall, is senator from New Mexico.

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Alaska

Sen. Mark Begich’s father, Nick, was Alaska’s sole representative in the House until he went missing in a 1972 plane crash. His body was never recovered. The son, now 51, got elected to Anchorage’s city council at 26 and then became mayor of the state’s largest city. He narrowly defeated incumbent Ted Stevens in 2008 and now faces a difficult reelection.

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Kentucky

Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes, 35, is the daughter of former Kentucky Democratic Party chairman Jerry Lundergan, a close ally of Bill Clinton. Lundergan resigned his state House seat in the late 1980s over an ethics scandal. But he remained a formidable figure in state Democratic politics and is heavily involved in his daughter’s campaign to unseat Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

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Georgia

Democratic nominee Michelle Nunn, a nonprofit executive and first-time candidate, is the daughter of moderate former Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), 75. The older Nunn, who once chaired the Armed Services committee and now runs the Nuclear Threat Initiative in Washington, has helped his daughter raise money.

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West Virginia

Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito’s father, Arch, was a three-term West Virginia governor. He served two years in federal prison for political corruption in the early 1990s. His daughter, 60, was elected to the state House in 1996 and then the U.S. House in 2000. She is the strong frontrunner this November to win the seat opening up with Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s retirement.